Alabama linebacker prospect Trey DePriest likes to stay active

View full size(Courtesy Springfield High School)Alabama commitment Trey DePriest makes a big hit during a prep game last season.

When he's not flattening running backs, pulling down rebounds, clubbing a baseball or hitting the books to maintain his 3.2 GPA, Trey DePriest likes to head to the fishing hole and try to hook a catfish. It's about the only time DePriest sits still.

To simply call DePriest a do-everything athlete isn't doing him justice. Not only does the Springfield (Ohio) High senior play three sports, he does just about everything in his favorite one, football. He led Springfield's defense with 116 tackles, rushed for 850 yards and punted for a 38-yard average last season.

And he also finds time to read to first-graders as part of Springfield's Turn the Page program.

"He's a kid who needs to be active," said Spingfield coach Rick Robertson. "He's easily bored."

Next year, perhaps for the first time, DePriest will channel his energies into one athletic pursuit -- trying to become the next great Alabama linebacker.

The 6-foot-2, 232-pound DePriest committed to the Tide over local favorite Ohio State.

"That's just where I felt the most comfortable," he said of Alabama. "They treated me real well. That's just the type of people I want to be around all the time."

Robertson said Sal Sunseri, who recruited DePriest for Alabama, left a lasting impression with him -- as did coach Nick Saban, who won over DePriest and his family in a video teleconference.

"Grandpa's a die-hard Ohio State man," Robertson said. "He said, 'If you don't go to Ohio State, I have no problem with you playing for that man.'"

Family is a big part of who DePriest is, with grandparents Ron and Sue DePriest joining mom Angie DePriest in raising Trey and his sister, Brianna.

"He's got a great family situation from the standpoint of support," Robertson said. "They help keep him very humble."

He is aware of Alabama's tradition of linebackers that includes Lee Roy Jordan and Cornelius Bennett, Derrick Thomas and Rolando McClain, and he enjoyed spending time with Dont'a Hightower during his visit to Tuscaloosa. Saban's success in grooming defensive players for the NFL is part of the reason he wants to wear crimson.

"It's an NFL defense," he said. "That's where I want to play next. If you want to play on Sundays and you already know the defense, you'll be that much further ahead."

Robertson said DePriest has the instincts and the ability to become Alabama's next great tackling machine. He just turned 17 and when he devotes his full off-season attention to the weight room -- he sneaks in lifting sessions after basketball and baseball practices in high school -- Robertson said his potential is immense.

"We really tell him very little -- just do it," Robertson said. "Maybe he's not going to be the fastest or his vertical (jump) isn't the highest. But he's got good athletic instincts, and those are things you can't coach and you can't test."